Cities and People on the Move

For some reason, I have become fascinated with the ways people move from place to place. Especially since coming to Dublin for the semester, I find myself on busses, airplanes, and trains wondering who my fellow passengers are, how they ended up here and where they are going.

I think this interest certainly has a foundation in my move to New York City a few years ago, since prior to that most of my transportation took place in cars in a Pennsylvania suburb. I am interested in urban spaces, and these are so often focused on and transformed by the importance of moving from place to place. Entire cities change in order to make room for a new road or a new train track. People will base where they live based on what subway stop they can access easily. Parents base similar decisions based on the ease with which they will get their children to school safely.

In a cosmopolitan city like Dublin, it seems that people are always on the move, and so I decided for my visual ethnography to try to capture what it means to be a Dubliner in motion. Whether this means catching people on their way to work, or observing anxieties around the need to get somewhere, or simply standing still and seeing what happens around me, I think it will be an interesting way to see the city. I will ask myself who people are and how their transportation (and their destination) shape their identity in the city.

I hope to create an archive of photos that will capture the diversity of experiences with the everyday need to travel around the city. Since everyone needs to get from place to place, regardless of how they spend their time, the bus, train, or road is an interesting space that brings together students, adults, families, visitors, and natives of the city. People who live in seemingly separate spheres in the city are still traveling on the same roads and in some of the same ways. This is something I hope to capture in my ethnography.

I think urban transportation systems are important because they are an indicator of and a tool of globalization. Dublin is an increasingly global city, and the efficient movement of its residents from place to place is important in their increased involvement across previous boundaries--key to globalization.

My take on the city will be that of a relative newcomer: I am spending a semester at UCD as a study abroad student from Fordham University, where I am an American Studies student. I will graduate next May with a minor in Communication and Media Studies and, probably, a concentration in Cultural Products. This semester is an exciting one for me, as I have the opportunity to explore a variety of new places.

I hope that my project will produce a variety of interesting images that will help me to gain a better understanding of Dubliners in motion.